I asked my federal MP for help. An automatic reply was all I received - October 2022

On 25 October 2022, I wrote to the office of Linda Burney, then the federal Member for Barton and my elected representative. I was following up on this serious work health and safety matter I had already put to her office in writing before the October long weekend.

I was frightened. I was facing further financial loss. I needed someone to hear what was happening to me and help me find a way forward.

“I’m very alone, frightened and traumatised more from systemic abuse and failure,” I wrote.

I explained that if what I was experiencing didn’t stop, I feared losing another $30,000 of my hard-earned superannuation. I told the office I was afraid I would have a breakdown. I asked for “support and kindness and human dignity and compassion.” I urged them to read the two documents I had attached and asked for urgent action that week.

I also explained why I needed help with this federal matter. I had received a letter from the Fair Work Ombudsman, but I was so traumatised by what had happened that I couldn’t bring myself to open it. I told my MP’s office plainly: “I’m imprisoned in fear now and I need support from my federal MP office.”

An automatic reply arrived. It acknowledged receipt and asked constituents to provide an address and contact number if they hadn’t already done so. I had included both.

I never received a personal response. I never received the help I had asked for.

I understand that an MP’s office cannot resolve every matter a constituent brings to it. But I had described urgent financial and psychological harm, identified a Fair Work Ombudsman letter I was struggling to face, and asked for human support. Even a response explaining what the office could do, or where it could help me take the next step, would have mattered.

I had already sought help from my state representative and that turned into betrayal. By the time I wrote to my federal MP’s office, I felt abandoned by the systems that were supposed to respond. Reaching out again took effort I could scarcely afford.

Elected representatives ask us to trust them with our votes. When a constituent writes in fear, explains the harm they’re facing and asks for help with a matter involving a federal agency, that trust should mean more than an automatic acknowledgement.

I was a constituent asking to be heard. The silence that followed has stayed with me.

I have already written about the Fair Work Ombudsman letter and the distress it caused me, when I finally read it. See http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2026/09/the-fair-work-ombudsman-when-another.html

Source: contemporaneous record of events - Document 552.